Free your mind & your a*** will follow[1]

Okay now. Congratulate yourself. You made it through the most difficult part. Take a long and deep breath; enjoy being in the clean air of Switzerland without actually being in Switzerland[2]. I can meet you here. I can embrace you all guru-like now. I couldn’t go as far back as Alex or Iwana. Not even the Buddha could go back and be a mereprince. We can talk from man to man now; or from woman to man. I am Joan and I ask you for the moment to look down at the floor respectfully when you are in my company. We wouldn’t want my being female come in the way of your seeing the light. It is so damned inconvenient to be shocked in your stereotypes, at the moment you’re ready to liberate yourself from stereotypes. So – look down and listen. Listen to Joan. I’ll speak in a low voice. You can start to think of me as Yo-An’h. It’s easier that way. I know. Just think of me as a handsomely graying wise Yo-An’h, conveniently dressed (and grinning) in a Dalai Lama-kind of way.

Listen attentively! This is My word. And I say:

“Time to let go. Let’s have some fun. It wasn’t easy, I know. We were oh so! close to being indoctrinated. Yes, I have been like you. Aren’t we all alike, really? I have seen the cars, the sexy (wo)men smelling of riches, the powerful and the company of the famous. You’ve seen them too. You think – as I once thought[3] – ‘Damned, this is unfair. It is sobloodyunfair that those who persist in being morons get it all. Sofuckin’unfair that we who have seen the light get stuck with higher culture and lower pay.’ What I say[4] to you on that is this[5]: “Get over it & get over it already, you whining little bastards, because this is the God-of-Twain’s creation in which all (and then some) is unfair. More specifically: unfair by intelligentdesign. Look up & be open to life. Open yourselves up to myspirituality! Look up! and join me on my way.””

And then you do look up and there you will see me, Joan, laughing my heart out at all of you who have allowed yourselves to be fooled yet another time. I won’t even stop laughing when you give me that all-hurtlook of having ‘opened up’ and taken advantage of at your most weakest moment; at your most sensitive. No – I’ll laugh even harder. I will laugh until you realize that all of this vulnerability and all the self-pity[6], is just a sign that you still don’t get it; that you are still far too stuck up to be your own person – without need of falseidentity and measurable signs of the above average groupsuccess. Eventually, you will realize all of that. You will feel angry at the passiveaggressivealternative to overpromotion; you’ll feel how it has to feel to be raped by a guru and not being able to express it – because you know it was, so to speak, your own fault …

It isn’t easy. It really isn’t. I know. I’m Joan. I’ve been there. I felt like it just must have been the world that was wrong. If only the world could be better, if only the management could be less shortsighted, if only … you would be recognized for the magnificence that you really were able to bring. But the only realinsight is this: the world is as it is, for better or for worse, and you aremagnificent, whether they see it or not, so the only problem is that you have to free your mind from the addiction on recognition.

Free your mind. Let go. Stop trying to overachieve. Just leave it be and let nobody put your imagination in this darkest of mental dungeons: ‘Once you chose for this, that is the best you can still get.”. Where this is the non–ambition of anambitiouscareer and where that is a lifestyle with a carbon footprint the size of Zimbabwe[7]; and the self-gratifyingknowledge that most people would be jealous of you.

Free your mind and your arse will follow. And not vice versa either – as it is not by signing up for the Zumba or denying yourself the pleasureofan evening in front of the TééVèè, nor by demonstrating your skill at dancing the tango[8], that you escape running in this here treadmill. Remember: 0% transpiration, 100% inspiration 😉

If you’re still with me, you have almost qualified for all of the prerequisites. You’re rational so you will want to be able to falsify this hypothesis. I am Joan – and I can now give you my first principle[9]: when people treat you as a weirdo, you made it! They will think you’re a decadent. Decadence is good – but more on that later[10].

From wow over wannabe to weirdo!!! You’re set. You can become the hero of us, zeroes. Don’t go overboard though! Nietzsche went too Zarathustra, we will need to keep our science gay. To this end: please complete the exercises before going on.

[1] We are indebted to George Clinton’s Parliament for this most beautiful of phrases. We do heavily recommend playing that tune whilst reading this at max volume, preferably at work.

[2] Don’t frown! Don’t look all mystified. You don’t want to be in Switzerland anymore. You don’t want to be where everybody else is, drinking themselves to death after showing off how expensive their skiing gear is to express how special they are to others that are exactly like them. Evading tax, proclaiming they are “Taxed Enough, Already” all at the same time as wasting money and feeling bad about it.

[3] And we both will have thought!

[4] In an appropriately ‘unto ye!’ kind of way with just the smallest hint of Eastern (and Yoda-like) whispering.

[5] Listen attentively! This is My word

[6] All of this silent superiority that is naught else then arrogance disguised as the falsest possible of all false modesty; this quintessential hypocrisy.

[7] Zimbabwe being also a convenient location for politicallycorrecttourism consisting of an hour or so a day living like the locals in the comforting knowledge that another twenty-three hours – and the rest of the year – will be spent in the most splendid form of Apartheid: the reservation for those that happened to be born in places less authentic than those used for ‘eco-tourism’.

[8] Or cooking a mousse of foie gras rained upon with droplets of white truffle, all of which is put on little teeny-weeny beds of raw vegetables soaked in oyster moisture. Or any another thing that may be visualized as being done by some Peter or other that has just realized that it will not, for him, get any better than this, ever.